“Stay 1.5 to 2 metres away from other people – this is the simplest and most effective way of preventing person to person spread.

“The other pivotal bit of advice is to wash your hands. Soap and water is best, but hand sanitiser (if you are lucky enough to have obtained a supply) is still very good.

“Use your card instead of cash when shopping, don’t shake hands, hug or kiss unnecessarily, and remember that well people can still be infected.”

The other important control measure, helping not only protect yourself but other communities as well, is to reduce travel.

“The absolute best advice is to stay home as much as possible. Use the time to catch up on household chores, watch Netflix, talk on the phone … whatever works for you,” Dr Hall said.

“If you can work from home – do so. If you were planning on catching up with friends – FaceTime them instead.

“There are far worse things than being contained at home for a period of time … and one of those is having severe complications from coronavirus.

“A big difference between coronavirus and a regular virus is that nobody in the community has immunity to it. This means that while other viruses go around missing those people that have been previously exposed to that particular or similar strain, everyone has what we call a ‘naive immune system’ to coronavirus.

“Simply put, this means that more people will get infected. Add into that the higher level of severe respiratory complications that we are seeing with this virus, and we can see why it is overwhelming the health systems in other countries,” Dr Hall said.